


What You're Thinking

by Welfycat



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Community: angst_bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-10
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:38:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A case gives Spencer an opportunity to provide some answers to questions that Derek never thought to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You're Thinking

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Angst Bingo; Prompt: Threats  
> Content Notes: Discussion of mental illness of a minor character, discussion of child endangerment.

"It would be a lot easier to explain if it was what you're thinking," Spencer said, seemingly out of the blue on a quiet Sunday late morning.

Derek looked up from where he'd been going over the blueprints for a house he'd recently bought. It was going to take a lot of work to get it looking good again, though he doubted it had ever looked good to begin with. But after he'd worked on it, tore through the molding walls and gutted the upper floor entirely, it would be clear enough to rebuild something better; the foundation was good, it was just the contents that needed to be replaced.

Spencer was focused entirely on him, his eyes blinking a little more than usual from behind his glasses. There was a book spread out across his lap, but Derek could tell that he hadn't turned any pages since he'd sat down.

"Alright," Derek agreed, hoping that if he let Spencer talk he could at least get enough information to get a coherent starting point. When Spencer didn't elaborate, Derek rolled up the blueprints and got up, moving to the chair in the sitting area that was 'his', directly across from the couch where Spencer was sitting with Clooney curled up by his feet.

Spencer looked down briefly at the book he'd been staring at for the past hour before closing the cover and setting it next to him on the couch, looking almost like he was reluctantly giving up a shield or a weapon. He dropped his hand down and rubbed Clooney's head; even though it had taken Spencer a while to trust that Clooney wasn't interested in barking or biting, Clooney had attached himself to Spencer from almost the moment they met. If Derek was a lesser man, he'd be a little jealous of his dog's attachment to his boyfriend.

"You going to tell me what this is about?" Derek finally asked when Spencer made no further movement.

Looking down for a moment, Spencer appeared to compose himself before looking back up and meeting Derek's steady gaze with resolve. "In Idaho Falls, you were watching me."

Derek sighed a little to himself, even though his expression never changed. It was going to be one of those conversations where he had to fight for every word he got from Spencer. When they'd first got together, he never would have guessed that he would want Spencer to talk more. But, before then, he'd never realized how much of what Spencer said was filler and deflection. "I'm always watching you. It's kind of hard not to." Derek allowed a bit of a playful smile to show through, relieved when Spencer blushed and smiled just a little in response.

"I mean, you were there when I..." he trailed off and waved one of his hands as if the motion could indicate what he was failing to describe.

Derek got up and walked the few steps so that he was sitting next to Spencer, after nudging Clooney out of the way and putting Spencer's book aside. He put one of his hands on Spencer's shoulder, knowing that the physical contact would help ground him, but too much would leave Spencer even more unsettled. "Yes, I was there. And just liked we talked about, it happens to everyone. We can't always control our reactions, and we can't always anticipate what will trigger a flashback or a panic attack."

"It doesn't happen to everyone, not like that," Spencer turned so that he could meet Derek's eyes again. "It doesn't happen to you. Not to Hotch, or to Rossi, or Emily."

"Just because you haven't seen it happen, doesn't mean that it hasn't. And it doesn't always happen in the same way either. You've seen all of us take unacceptable risks, or go rushing in after an unsub when we should have waited for backup," Derek frowned when his hand was shrugged off of Spencer's shoulder.

"That's not the same," Spencer said firmly. He turned his face away from Derek for a moment and when he turned back his expression was once again controlled and impassive.

Derek took a slow and even breath, willing himself to have the patience for this conversation. "What exactly do you think I was thinking?" he asked, pushing past the minutia of the discussion. When talking with Spencer it was so easy to get lost in the details and turns of phrases and even statistics memorized from who knew where, particularly when Spencer was simultaneously avoiding and trying to broach a topic.

Spencer gave a small huff of breath and looked down at his hands. "The woman, I couldn't stop her, couldn't get there in time. And she was just holding him, even after... And I called for her to stop, promised her anything if she would stop."

Closing his eyes for a moment, Derek was able to recall the scene with just as much clarity as Spencer and his eidetic memory could. They had been hunting the unsub for a full week before they finally had enough information to come to the right conclusion. Four dead children, little bodies limp and torn, and it had taken them a week to make the connections to a former employee of a childcare center where each of the kids had gone once, maybe twice.

Spencer had been the one at the house first, he'd been out canvasing with one of the local officers, half the task force dedicated to combing through the area Spencer's geographical profile had indicated. He had been the first through the door, a shout from inside spurring him into action whereas he otherwise might have been able to wait for the rest of the team. Even though Derek hadn't been there for that part, he could picture it as if he had been; Spencer had been over it enough times while filling in the rest of the team and giving his report that all of the details were there, Derek just had to fill in the blanks.

The woman had been in the kitchen, at the very back of the house, forcing Spencer and the officer to carefully and swiftly make their way through the unfamiliar environment with their guns drawn and their eye sharp. It was always easier to do a sweep of a house with your own team or your own partner. The sound of their voice was familiar and just a change in pitch had the potential to provide a great deal of information about what they were seeing. There was also the comfort of predictability, just by sheer repetition it was possible to predict their actions and movements. Spencer had none of those advantages when going into the house, and couldn't wait even though Derek and Rossi had only been four minutes away.

Derek and Rossi had arrived just in time to see Spencer throwing himself at the woman and child, the other police officer in the process of firing his weapon in the direction of the three of them. Derek was pretty certain that his heart had stopped completely, even though he had only paused for a split second before diving in after Spencer. Spencer had his arms full with the child, and Derek had turned to forcing the woman to drop her knife and subduing her, the bullet from the officer's weapon miraculously missing all of them. It wasn't until maybe two minutes later that Derek realized that Spencer's voice wasn't whispering reassurances to the child he was holding, that instead it was barely audible pleas for forgiveness and for the mother to put the knife down. And it wasn't until Derek had bent down to take the child from Spencer that he realized how much blood there was, and that the child was dead.

It wasn't until that moment, sitting there on the couch in his living room, with Spencer all hunched in on himself, that Derek realized that Spencer hadn't been begging for that woman, that mother, to stop. He'd been pleading with _mother_ to stop. His mother. Derek had taken Spencer's shaking and incoherency and his refusal to release the body of the child as pure shock and panic. There were things that happened in the field that had reduced all of them to that at one point or another; in their job, the things they saw, it would have been more surprising if it didn't happen.

"Spencer," Derek said softly, his mind automatically making connections between the scene and what he knew of Spencer's history.

"It's not what you're thinking," Spencer said again, twisting under Derek's arm so that he was looking at him.

It was a plea for Derek to believe him, and Derek could see that Spencer at least believed what he was saying. "Okay," he agreed, keeping Spencer's gaze so that he would know that he did believe him.

"I don't want you to think that she was like that. You've met my mom, you know she's not like that," Spencer continued with an edge of panic in his voice.

Derek had met Diana Reid on more than one occasion, even though Spencer rarely visited her and even then the visits were brief. He knew that Spencer still wrote his letters even though they didn't always get sent, and once when he had found Spencer writing one he'd immediately been assured that he was much more careful about any identifying details in what he sent.

The time that they spent with Derek's mother and sisters was always more relaxed. His sisters and mother both approved of Spencer and found Derek's choice of partner to be a little amusing, but they had made it very clear that Spencer was welcome in their home. As a result, even when Spencer was nervous and babbling as he typically was the first few hours of a visit, everyone just smiled fondly and Spencer eventually managed to relax enough that he was the calm and confident man that Derek had come to love.

When they visited Spencer's mother, Derek only ever saw Spencer tense, worried and distant. It was a change that Derek had attributed to the environment and the reminders of his mother's illness but maybe there was more to it than that. "I know she wasn't always taking her medication when you were a child," Derek offered as neutrally as possible, not missing the flash of anguish in Spencer's expression.

"There is a stigma that schizophrenics are violent, perhaps reinforced by what we see in our work, but that's not usually the case. If someone with a schizoaffective disorder harms anyone it's much more likely to be harm to themselves," Spencer said. "In fact-"

"I know. We've talked about this before," Derek cut him off before he could delve into statistics and start providing examples. Once this turned into an academic discussion they would be in Spencer's world and he would have no hope of steering the conversation back to whatever had triggered Spencer's response. "Why don't you just tell me what happened? I'll just listen, that's all."

Spencer looked at him as if waiting for the offer to be withdrawn. "You won't talk about this with Hotch?"

Derek shook his head, even though he wanted to smile a little bit. "I've only ever told Hotch anything when he needed to know for your own safety or if effected the team. And it's been a long time since I've done that."

"Time has little meaning in memory," Spencer said simply.

Derek held up his hands in mock surrender. "I won't tell Hotch. I might encourage you to talk with him if I think it's something he should know, but I won't tell him."

Spencer waited another moment before nodding his acceptance. He leaned back a little on the couch, putting some distance between them but keeping his attention on Derek's face. "Like you said, my mom didn't always take her medication. Sometimes she functioned well enough to get by without it and sometimes she spiraled into an episode before I could get her back to the doctor."

When Spencer paused and refocused his eyes on him, Derek nodded to indicate that he was listening and found himself thoroughly grateful that he'd become very good at keeping his expression impassive over the years. He'd sat through confessions from serial killers and child molesters without coming close to giving any indication of what he really felt; he could do the same for Spencer because his anger and sympathy for how Spencer had lived as a child was neither useful nor welcomed.

"Routine was very important for us, both of us. I got to school on time, the bills were paid on time, we had food in the pantry and everything worked. It was when things got off schedule that they fell apart a little bit," Spencer said before stopping again.

Derek found himself tensing and forced himself to relax his shoulder and leg muscles. Spencer usually talked about his childhood in a fairly detached way, occasionally describing incidents in a way that indicated that he thought they were amusing and had no idea at all how unusual his experience was. This was with the exception of a few events that really bothered Spencer, things he was still deeply emotionally invested in, which tended to leave Spencer either shaking in anger or turning away and speaking in bits and pieces that were barely connected. Right now, Spencer seemed unemotional enough on the surface, his expression calm and his hands folded in his lap, but the way he kept stopping and stalling suggested this was something he was struggling with. "It's okay, Spencer. Just tell me," Derek said, offering his hand for Spencer to take if he wanted it.

Spencer didn't reach for his hand but did relax his leg enough so that his thigh was resting against Derek's knee. "Every once and a while I was late getting home. The bus didn't come on time or I missed it because of extenuating circumstances at school," Spencer said, closing his eyes briefly when he mentioned school. "I always told her and left notes when I knew I was going to be later than usual, but she didn't always remember or find the notes. She got worried when I wasn't on time. She couldn't come and find me, she was too afraid of being taken or who was watching her to leave the house. And she got worried that I might get taken by the government or that I might be influenced by the spies who were watching the house."

Derek nodded again when Spencer met his eyes, waiting for Spencer to tell him how this wasn't what he was thinking it was.

"She never did anything, she just, threatened. She was just sick and afraid, and she didn't understand how it came across," Spencer shrugged and looked away from Derek. "It was just after my father left and I was still learning about her illness. I didn't understand yet that it was just as likely to her that I was collaborating with government spies as it was that I was working on a lab project."

"And the unsub with the knife?" Derek asked, because he couldn't let the topic rest without knowing.

Spencer's eyes squeezed shut and when he opened them there wasn't a trace of the sorrow in his expression that had shown there briefly. "One day I came home about two hours late. I hadn't been able to get on any of the earlier buses because it was my first year at the high school and I had, difficulties, with some of the other students."

Derek had heard more than enough about Spencer's experiences in high school to be able to fill in what he wasn't saying. He put his hand on Spencer's knee and squeezed gently.

"When I got home, she grabbed me when I got in the door and kept asking me all these questions. It was a little like an interrogation, actually. I was eventually able to convince her that it was just me and that they hadn't _gotten to me_ , and the next day I got her back to the clinic to get some new medication," Spencer said quickly, as if saying it fast would make it have less impact.

"And she had a knife when she was questioning you," Derek surmised. He had to give Spencer credit in that it wasn't exactly what he'd been thinking, but it wasn't that far off either.

Spencer nodded and licked his lips, his entire body shifting in preparation for fleeing the couch and probably their apartment.

"Thank you for telling me," Derek said after he had a chance to push away the surge of anger at life in general and the past in particular. He pulled Spencer in to a hug, knowing that Spencer often expected rejection after talking about his experiences as a child and teenager. Spencer was still rigid in his arms but he wasn't pulling away either.

"Thank you for listening," Spencer said, "and for not just assuming you were right about what you were thinking."

Derek didn't bother to tell him that he wouldn't have thought anything about it at all if Spencer hadn't brought the subject up.


End file.
